The Noise of a Living World
It was loud.
The growl of car engines. The clamor of conversation. Music drifting from somewhere he couldn't place. Every sound in the world seemed to slam straight into his eardrums at once.
"Hrm."
The first real racket he'd felt in ages. After the regression, he'd been cooped up in his goshiwon—so yes, it had been a long time. The noise was loud enough to make his head throb, and even that felt welcome. Compared to the end—the silence and the smothering loneliness that had filled those final days—anything was better.
He drew in a deep breath.
Filthy, compared to the air inside the Tower. Exhaust fumes and fine dust, thick enough to sting his nose. And yet—
A grin tugged at the corner of Yujin's mouth.
A world that hadn't ended.
"Ugh! My nose! What is that smell?!"
"Bleh—what the hell is wrong with that guy?"
People around him started dry-heaving and glaring.
…Ah. Right.
He'd forgotten what he looked like right now.
From the second stratum all the way to the fourth—how many days had he spent hunting like a madman in a place with nowhere to wash? More than a month without so much as a drop of water on his skin. And Yujin had never been the tidy sort of hunter. Of course he was a wreck. Coated head to toe in monster blood and fluids, grime caked on so thick even a beggar would have clicked his tongue.
Completely slipped my mind.
Living with two people in the same state, he'd adapted so thoroughly he hadn't even noticed there was a problem.
Come to think of it, the first run was probably the same.
Not just him. Everyone who reached the fifth stratum and stepped outside for the first time looked exactly like this. Washing could wait. The only thought that mattered was getting out of the Tower now.
"Should we call the cops?"
"That thing on his arm—is that a teddy bear? Is this guy not right in the head?"
People murmured among themselves. A man who had clearly been through hell had just appeared in the middle of a major thoroughfare; of course someone thought about calling the police or an ambulance.
World's still worth living in, at least.
No one came close, but still. Yujin looked around. Faces twisted in disgust. Eyes wide with shock. Expressions of genuine concern. People who didn't care at all. Beyond them, the view of Seoul unfurled—lively to the point of chaos.
"How long has it been?"
Ignoring the stares completely, Yujin started walking. The sidewalks—shattered and useless in the end—were laid out straight and clean. Just walking on them made the regression feel worth it.
First, home. Shower. Then make some money. Even outside the Tower, it's not like there's nothing to do.
There were things he could do out here that would help with the climb. A week would pass in a blink if he got to work.
Need to move fast.
No time to wallow in nostalgia. Every minute, every second—he had to move more, and faster.
"Ah. Right."
Lee Sia and Park Ji-hoo floated into his mind.
"Bet it's chaos over on their end too."
A laugh slipped out of him despite himself.
"Th-this is insane."
Lee Sia crouched in a dark, empty alley and scanned her surroundings, terrified someone might spot her.
"If I'd known it would be like this, I would've picked the second option!"
She'd only thought about getting outside. Her own appearance had never crossed her mind. Dropped into the middle of Gangnam, she had drawn every eye in the street. At first the sheer joy of being outside had drowned out the wrongness—but only for a moment. One glance at her reflection in a shop window, and she had screamed and bolted for the nearest corner like the wind.
How am I supposed to get home?
This was Gangnam. Her place was in Yeonnam-dong. Public transit in this state was impossible. A taxi was out of the question too. That left walking—and walking would take a solid three hours, every stranger's stare glued to her the entire way.
Absolutely, positively, under no circumstances, NEVER.
She was not going to walk around outside looking like this.
"Ph-phone—"
…Of course she didn't have one. Every electronic device she'd been carrying had vanished the moment she was summoned into the Tower.
"What do I do?"
She was about to cry. Even stripping the Flame Dragon's scales with Black Wing [C] in hand hadn't felt this hopeless. But she couldn't hide in this alley forever. She had one week left. Spending it in a dark, deserted side street was far too wasteful.
"…Just go."
Thinking wouldn't produce a solution. There was only one choice left.
I just have to run fast.
At level 30, Sia's physical ability had long since left ordinary humans behind. Invisible speed was still beyond her, but at a full sprint she could at least keep her face off any photo.
She pictured her face caught on someone's camera.
"Uuuugh—"
Death. Not of the body—social death. For a fresh-faced twenty-year-old, it was a catastrophe she refused to experience.
Cover my face, and—
If she just ran west, she'd hit a street she recognized eventually. With a resolute look, Sia drew up her mana. She was more serious than she'd ever been fighting monsters.
A low hum filled the air. Mana swept the surroundings and kicked up a small whirl of dust.
Now!
She spread her senses, waiting for a moment when fewer people were nearby—then launched.
With a sharp crack of air, her figure shot out of the alley and tore down the main road.
"Wh-what the—?!"
"Kyaaaaah!"
Something huge burst out of nowhere and sprinted at a speed that left people screaming.
"Was that a person?"
"Isn't that the girl from earlier?"
"Yeah—the one covered in weird stuff all over?"
"Looked kinda like her, from what I saw."
"Whoa. Was she a track star or something?"
"Even so, that was way too fast, right?"
Usain Bolt himself wouldn't have come close to that speed. That was how fast she was.
"Anyone get video?"
Gangnam was packed with people—and with smartphones and CCTV. Even if no one had filmed her on purpose, the odds that something had caught her by accident were high.
"I wanna see that again."
"The track federation would go nuts looking for her, huh?"
If they could put that girl in the Olympics, a gold medal would be a done deal.
"Right? Anyway, where are we eating?"
"There's a place that does great thin-sliced pork belly over that way. Wanna go?"
Sia's existence vanished from their minds almost at once. A brief incident. That was all they thought of it. But they had no idea—because of her, and two others like her, the world was about to be turned upside down.
Unlike Sia, Yujin strolled home as if he were out for a walk. Fortunately, the exit point hadn't been far from his goshiwon, so he arrived quickly.
And ran straight into an immovable wall.
"Aigoo, the smell! What is this?! Where do you think you're going?! Out! Before I call the police!"
The wall was the goshiwon landlady. She stood on the stairs with both arms spread, clearly determined not to let him set foot inside.
"I live here."
"We don't have anyone like you in this goshiwon! And even if we did, no! I'm not letting you in!"
She didn't recognize him. Fair enough—he looked like hell.
"I'm in room 602. You know—the guy who works part-time and works out? You used to say I was handsome and pack me side dishes."
Around anyone else he might have been different, but in front of the landlady Yujin shrank. She was the landlord, after all.
"…Room 602?"
Suspicious eyes. Checking whether this really was the young man she knew.
"Huh? Wait—it is you? What on earth happened to you? Did you get kidnapped or something?"
Fortunately, she recognized him.
"Yeah, something like that."
Kidnapping wasn't entirely wrong.
"Where have you been? Rent's overdue, you never answered your phone—so I cleared out all your stuff."
"My stuff?"
"What else was I supposed to do? I can't leave a room empty forever. I've got to eat too."
"Ah…"
She wasn't wrong. A day or two of missed rent was one thing.
About three weeks overdue, was it?
Roughing out the dates put it around there.
"Then my things are…"
"Check the storage room. I left them there."
Yujin considered it for a moment, then shook his head. His "belongings" were a few sets of clothes and some workout gear. No real reason—or need—to reclaim them.
"Could I at least wash up first? I'll transfer the back rent right away."
The landlady looked reluctant. Letting him shower looking like that would wreck the bathroom. But thinking about the unpaid rent made simply turning him away feel risky.
"Fine. But you clean up properly after."
"I will. Oh—and could I borrow some clothes? I'll pay for them."
"Wait here. I'll dig up something my son used to wear."
"Thank you."
Yujin bowed politely. His social skills were in ruins, but he couldn't help going soft around the landlady. Before the Tower had taken him, she'd been the one person who looked after him when life was hard.
"Ugh, the stench. Get in there and wash already!"
Only then did she end her blockade of the stairs. Yujin hurried up and made straight for the shower room.
A weekday afternoon. Everyone was at work or the library; not a soul in sight. In the uncomfortable silence he stripped, threw his clothes aside, and turned on the shower.
Hot water poured over him for the first time in ages, melting the tension from his body.
"Yeah. I really was filthy."
The blood and scraps of flesh swirling toward the drain looked like a scene out of a horror movie.
"You only start looking halfway human once you hit level fifty, huh?"
Around then, elemental skills started showing up. With a water-attribute skill, you could stay clean even without NPC cities. Until then, there was no choice but to walk around looking like this.
"Ahh. That's good."
Washing the matted mess of his hair and scrubbing every inch of himself with body wash left him feeling unbelievably fresh.
"Room 602! I'm leaving the clothes outside—change and come out!"
"Yes, thank you!"
After a long stretch under the water, sorting his thoughts, Yujin dried off with a towel and stepped out of the shower room.
"Hmm."
The clothes the landlady had left were waiting—a blue tracksuit with three white stripes. They looked so worn he could tell at a glance how many years they'd been used.
"Not like I'm in any position to be picky."
His own clothes moldering in storage were in the same condition. He pulled them on and stretched.
"Alright. Next—"
Time to move again. First stop:
"The outskirts of the Tower of Light."
There were people of importance waiting out front, and he had things to say to them. An ordinary person wouldn't even get close—but that didn't apply to him.
"Not me."
With the power he held now, no security on earth could stop him. He ran through the plan in his head once more and headed for the door of the goshiwon.
Or rather—he tried to.
"You're not leaving without paying!"
The landlady blocked his path again.
"…Where did you say the storage room was? My wallet should still be in there."
Pay what he owed first. Then he could move.